


The House of Trelawney

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-20
Updated: 2006-09-20
Packaged: 2019-01-19 18:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12415923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Sibyll Trelawney, the Seer, reminisces on the eve of Dumbledore's death.





	The House of Trelawney

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

  
Author's notes: 1  


* * *

Sibyll Trelawney swept up the last bits of shattered china from her classroom floor. That poor Potter boy...to have witnessed such atrocities...

"Well, it isn't his fault," she murmured to herself. "The Death Eaters...a terrible, terrible thing..." She emptied the dustpan into the bin and sighed.

Sibyll straightened up and surveyed her classroom through her spectacles. The poufs were straight, the teacup shelf rearranged, the chairs pushed in...all seemed to be in order. She turned to her own table, where her cards, her tea leaves, and her crystal ball were arranged, waiting to be used. The card on top, however, was the lightning-struck tower--what she had seen in the deck earlier that evening.

"Ah, Dumbledore..." she said quietly, seating herself before the crystal ball. "It was your time, I suppose...but if you had listened...?"

She briskly brushed back a tear and fought the rising lump in her throat. He was gone. No reminiscing or Seeing would bring him back, and now the poor Potter boy would have to go on fighting this war alone. No need to worry over either of them...they were not of her concern...

Peering into the crystal ball, Sibyll waited for the fog to morph into recognizable shapes. Her bangles clattered as she laid her hands in her lap.

"Dear me...what's this?" she muttered. Squinting, she could see the shape of a house...a very familiar-looking house. And something else--was it a person?   


Sibyll looked around the room, puzzled. Her mind drifted away from the crystal-gazing, and instead to her past. As a child, was this what she dreamed of? Teaching at Hogwarts School, at the top of the North Tower? Had that really been her life's ambition?

Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard ever to walk the planet, was dead, and she was worrying over whether teaching had been her life's ambition? _I must be losing my mind..._

She sighed and pushed the crystal ball away from her, now shuffling her cards. Her Significator, as always, was the Six of Cups. But tonight, for the life of her, she could not remember what it meant. She kept a textbook for her advanced students, and began to search for the card. After a few minutes, she found the familiar arrangement of six cups in the book.

**THE SIX OF CUPS**

_Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers. **Divinatory meanings:** A card of memories and of the past._

Sibyll almost laughed. Everything, then, was pointing towards her past, whether a great man was dead or not. She remembered Grandmama laying out the cards, telling her that the past was critical to any fortune-telling, because the past determined one's future, no matter what.

But Grandmama was dead, and Sibyll was one of the few Seers left in the entire Wizarding world. No one else understood the burden of knowing the future.Â No one _cared_ to understand. _"It's not **fair.** "_

A mirror across the room groaned. "Nothing ever is, my dear." 


End file.
